May 17, 2013

Custard Chiffon Cake

Happy happy Friday peeps. I sincerely apologise for the silence. The whirlwind aftermaths of the general election had me hooked on all sorts of medias; FB, Twitter, TV, and so on. I'm no more near the election news now. The outcomes of the election, to me, showed how much the other half of the voters want that change to happen. No matter which party governs the country, let's just open up your eyes, mind and heart and make that change happen. The support will always be given to those who walk the talk. So walk the talk. Frankly, I'm a bit unpleased with some of the election outcomes, but life goes on.

I went Malacca on Friday, and arrived home on Monday, the day after the general election. It was my first time travelling without both Adam & Husband. Nope, my second one. But that was several years ago. It felt different this time. A whole lot of different. The journey felt... weird without his voice asking me this and that. Without his big voice singing and zikir-ing. A very quiet journey I'd say. And to make it weirder, I managed to finish the whole book "An Old Palace in the Village" in few hours time. I rarely finish any book these days- But most of that time goes to Adam and I'm indeed lucky. ;)

Next, photos in this entry. Honestly, I am a bit unhappy with it. Well, you know how the weather behaves lately. Sunny in the morning, and in just a blink of an eye, it changes! I took the "prep" photo (before the baking happened) at 11 am in the morning, and the cake was ready to be shoot at 2pm, you know, this kind of cake needs some time to cool down. The prep photos look good to me. But by the time I wanted to shoot the cake, the weather had turned gloomy. I wanted to use the flash but the thought of setting it up stopped me. Plus, I have no idea where my husband keep it. And that brought me to the ISO, my last resort. Sigh. Darling husband, where did you keep that flash?

Now, to the cake. The recipe is from "Monday Morning Cooking Club" cookbook. I first discovered this cake almost a year ago through my Facebook timeline. It directed me to this touching video of Merelyn, making her mom's recipe, Custard Chiffon Cake. I was totally moved by Merelyn's story, and the cake... it was lovely. It's JUST a simple yellow cake, with a nice custardy scent. I don't know what, but the simplicity of this cake kindda WOW-ed me. It ranked right on top in my favorite cake list, to date. It's a big cake for the three of us, but poof, it's gone easily in less than a day. We had it for tea and keep the half chunk of it for breakfast. My picky Adam had more than two big slices, and that is enough to show you guys how great this cake is. :)

1. Preheat oven to 180C. You will need an ungreased chiffon cake tin (not a non stick one as well). Do NOT grease it.

2. Sift the flour,1 teaspoon of cream of tartar and custard powder three times to ensure they are fully combined.

3. In an electric mixer, whisk egg yolks with 230g( 1 cup) of sugar until pale and creamy, then add the vanilla extract.Pour the oil and warm water into a jug. While the yolks are still whisking on low speed, add the flour mixture and the oil & water at the same time, whisking until just incorporated.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then add the remaining sugar & remaining cream of tartar and continue to whisk until the egg whites are stiff but not dry. Very carefully fold the batter into the egg whites with a metal spoon until just incorporated.

5.Pour mixture into the cake tin. Bake for 1hour or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into cake.- I baked it for 1 hour and 10 mins. (Note to self, reduce the oven temp to avoid the cracks)

6. After removing the cake from the oven, immediately invert it to cool by balancing the middle funnel onto a bottle neck. It is important for the cake to be inverted and suspended upside down until it is cool to stop it from collapsing.

P/s: The comment box is not working and I'm doing my best to fix it- FIXED! :)